


All Better

by openhearts



Category: House M.D.
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-20
Updated: 2008-10-20
Packaged: 2018-10-09 07:43:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10407222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openhearts/pseuds/openhearts
Summary: Originally posted at LiveJournal.





	

It was dark in his office, the moon and outside security lights casting odd bars of light through the windows. The blinds were drawn on the other sides of the room, shutting it off from the hallways. 

 

She went to walk briskly past him, skirt flipping about her calves that were flexed by the high but sturdy heels she wore. Glasses, neat hair, crisply fitted lab coat, a folder of patient information held in perfectly manicured fingers, ready to confront him with another case that would doubtless produce another round of their strange cross between a dance and a boxing match. He would either box-step her into a corner with purely medical debate, or sucker punch her in the gut by making some innuendo, some remark, some completely infuriating non-move, and then retreating to his corner. 

 

He lounged in his Eames-ish chair, hips jutted forward on the seat, elbows draped languidly over the armrests, cane listing between unclenched fingers. His eyes were half closed, and she couldn’t tell that they weren’t glassy with the film of a day’s worth of pills and a night’s worth of scotch as they usually were.

 

“New case for tomorrow,” she said with a forced bright tone.

 

His head lolled toward the sound of her voice, temple still pillowed on the seat back, but kept staring at what seemed to be the distance with eyes that seemed to be unfocused. He was memorizing the color of the skirt she was wearing – a deep charcoal gray with brown undertones, examining how her lab coat hung to see if he could decipher what was in her pocket.

 

She rolled her eyes and dropped the folder onto his lap. When she moved to walk past him the cane swung out abruptly and bumped across her shins, holding her in place. Her voice was exasperated.

 

“House-“

 

The polished cylinder of wood swept slowly up and down over her shin, and the strange, smooth touch stole the remaining words from her mouth. Down to her ankle, then back up, bringing the hem of her skirt up a few inches with it over her knee. He examined her now naked knee with an odd intensity, his mouth a thinly drawn straight line that betrayed none of his thoughts. 

 

Cameron had a fleeting thought of the cane traveling further up her leg, under her skirt, deliciously slick and cold on her thighs. Another fleeting thought of lying back on a bed with that cane painting heat over her body with deliberate, haunting strokes. As those thoughts steadfastly refused to flee, House let his eyes travel away from her knee to her face, taking no small note of her expression.

 

‘SEX!’ her eyes squealed, while she shook her self just slightly and stepped back from the touch of his cane, casting her gaze desperately around the room, hoping to find something to focus on through the darkness. She fumbled to pull words from the back of her throat, but nothing came out but a few pathetic little half-coughs.

 

House’s thinly drawn mouth curved back, revealing a lazy smile.

 

“Why Cameron,” he said, voice quiet but intoned with glee, “you seem rather flustered. Have I,” he waited a beat, transferring the cane to his other hand to twirl it around his strong fingers, “flustered you?”

 

Cameron didn’t hear him at all. Her ears had shut off to his voice and tuned into the barely perceptible swooshing sounds the cane made as it traveled through the air, propelled by House’s deft hand. As he made it dance through the air, the polished wood caught bits of light and tossed them at her in hot little glints of light that she swore she felt dissolve into her skin.

 

“I . . .” Cameron grasped, groped (no, not ‘groped,’ ‘groped’ should not be in her vocabulary at the moment) for words, for something to express her frustration. Because now, now she was not flustered, bothered, or titillated. 

 

Now Cameron was _pissed_. At herself for being flustered, but not enough for any real action. At House for flustering her, but not nearly enough for any satisfaction.

 

“Yeeeeesss?” He drawled the word out, cane still spinning through the air. It was going to make her nauseas.

 

A throaty, clenched groan emanated from her as she gritted her teeth and closed her eyes for a moment. For a split second cold little glints of light dissolved into the insides of her eyelids as persistence of vision kept twirling the cane in her brain.

 

House started to chuckle, a similarly throaty and clenched sound, but was caught off guard when Cameron’s eyes snapped open and she leaned over him in the chair and snatched the cane from midair. She meant to use those few moments of distraction to gather her thoughts into some memorable thing to say to him. 

 

Unfortunately in the dark and in her state of being ( _pissed_ ), and in keeping with the fact that this was not some sort of novel or movie, as Cameron grabbed the cane it smacked House soundly across the temple, sounding a dull ‘thwack’ And causing him to see a few glints of light of his own.

 

For a few moments it was all brokenly muttered swear words being exchanged. 

 

“OW?!” House blinked, sat up straighter and, and clutched his head in his hands. 

 

“Oh my god, I-“ Cameron dropped the cane and sank onto the ottoman on which House’s bad leg rested. 

 

“What the-” Her small, spindly hands covered his own on each side of his head, pulling him gently toward her.

 

“Here, just let me-“ He looked darkly up at her, brow furrowed, blue of his eyes obstructed by the darkness of the room. But she knew how blue they were in the light. And wasn’t everything the same in the dark?

 

A pause. 

 

Everything was not the same in the dark. Everything was less dangerous, less awkward, and less scary. Which made it all the more.

 

The blood turned hot in their hands where they touched, and in their knees where they touched. 

 

The pause continued. 

 

The glint of surprise and disproportionate fear in her eyes turned into that other glint. 

 

Still more pause, and those points of heat were spreading now, faster than an airborne infection. 

 

Cameron’s left eyebrow shifted upwards. She moved House’s hands out of the way, and he let them drop into his lap, her hand now on the side of his face. She leaned closer, gently turned his head, and brought her lips to his temple.

 

Cameron’s lips rested there for what felt like about seven full minutes. Enough time for House to first accept, then grow impatient with the touch, and the coyness he knew would follow from those lips when she decided to break the contact. 

 

She would pull away slowly, pull her hands away slowly. “All better,” she’d breathe, and get up, brushing invisible wrinkles from her lab coat. And she’d walk out the door, leaving him, she would plan, to be all hot and bothered because of a kiss for a boo-boo.

 

Not so fast, little girl.

 

Cameron, of course, didn’t know that any of this had happened in House’s mind, since seven full minutes had not, in fact, elapsed. When he pulled back from the touch, brushed her hands away from him and grasped her arms firmly, Cameron’s mind started to race. He had foiled her plan! 

 

She had been going to pull away slowly, and breathe, “all better,” and get up, brushing wrinkles from her lab coat. And she was going to walk out the door, leaving him to be all hot and bothered because she’d kissed his boo-boo.

 

It had been a brilliant, perfect plan, and now House was ruining it by – 

 

House pulled Cameron toward him as he leaned back in the chair. She leaned her weight on her hands, rested on the armrests of House’s chair, since he’d drawn her up into a half-standing position. They couldn’t stay this way long, with Cameron’s ass in the air and House craning his neck to reach her lips.

 

They didn’t have to. Cameron woke up with a start just as his breath touched her lips.


End file.
